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THE BOSS OF the Irish Farmers Association has been setting out his priorities for the sector at the group’s big annual get-together this afternoon.
Some 120 delegates from all over the country have been arriving since early this morning ahead of the group’s AGM, held this year as always in the heart of industrialised West Dublin — at the Irish Farm Centre, in Bluebell.
So what do farmers want this year?
As always, a boost in profitability.
Eddie Downey, the IFA President, called for a redoubling of efforts to market the country’s produce abroad as he delivered his keynote speech to a packed conference room.
He’s not just calling for it, in fact. It’s something the IFA “is demanding”.
The Government-backed branding strategy by Bord Bia and the Irish Dairy Board would be aimed at delivering a “price premium for Irish produce, like the premium achieved by producers of Scotch beef and lamb”.
Scotland’s meat promotions body reported an increase in red meat consumption late last year, coupled with a surge in public awareness of local produce, following a number of award-winning marketing campaigns (see below).
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Downey said:
“What we’d be looking at is to get a proper branded Irish product on the supermarket shelves out there, equivalent to Kerrygold, that would carry our products.
We’ve invested very heavily as farmers and the industry in producing the quality product that we have. We consider ourselves to be the best in the world at what we do, with all the traceability and safety standards, so now it’s time to take advantage of that with a proper brand.
The Irish Dairy Board set up ‘Kerrygold’ back in 1961 to centralise the overseas marketing of butter — and in the last half century the brand has become synonymous with Irish dairy products .
Now that Ireland has been granted full access for its beef in the US market, a new branding strategy needs to be introduced, Downey said.
We need to build on what we have in the Kerrygold brand. That quality and that brand. Now that we’re moving into the American market we’ll be looking at niche products there, and niche markets going on there. We’ve got to have a proper solid Irish brand.
Elsewhere, the group is repeating its call for a GSOC-like watchdog body for the supermarket sector. A new ‘Supermarkets Ombudsman’ would help ensure fair play when it comes to pricing, Downey said.
It’s something successive IFA Presidents have called for. So what are the chances of progress this year?
The absolute necessity for it is the key thing now. We’ve seen the growth over the years of the multiples, getting stronger and stronger. You need a control mechanism on them to make sure they don’t abuse producers along the way.
Stronger regulation of retailers both at home and at EU level is needed, including a ban on below-cost selling, the IFA boss said.
Downey’s speech prioritised access to the European Commission’s GLAS scheme — a hot topic in recent months. Last week, a new farmers’ organisation was set up to campaign on the issue, after announcing a split with the IFA.
Elsewhere, New Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan has made a “positive start” since taking over, he said — and he insisted the recent campaign targeting meat factories had delivered for beef farmers.
Farm fatalities
On the subject of safety, Downey urged farmers to make the issue a top priority in 2015, following a “horrific” record over the past year.
30 people died on the country’s farms last year, including three children under the age of 16 and nine people over 65 — the worst figure in a quarter of a century.
The IFA needed to show leadership on the issue, he told delegates “and commit to making our family farms a safer place”.
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This makes me so angry!
@ObsidianShine: Remember insurance fraudsters steal money from your pockets. Vote FFG for more of the same.
@ObsidianShine: if their service is anything like their customer support for mobile then NO THANKS EIR. Given how they treat roaming customers I wouldnt touch them
@ObsidianShine: Thank Mammy O’Rourke. Telecom Eireann should have been split. Poles and cables to Eirgrid and calls and services sold. It all came about thanks to the EU’s stance on “You can’t have a monopoly” and gombeen politicians not knowing what the consequences of their actions would do.
Same with the ESB. Went from third cheapest electricity in the EU to third dearest – de-regulation on foot of EU orders.
@Ger Murphy: I’ve TV broadband mobile and landline with them. No problems at all.i think their service is a good as all the others. Hard luck
@Paul Furey: wait till you have a problem Paul, or want tok downgrade your service. They are an absolute nightmare
@I just wish all the ESB fan club here would take a look at how they run their own network
https://www.rte.ie/player/movie/rt%C3%A9-investigates-the-esb-leaks/102216231998.
As well as providing most expensive electricity in Europe. Maybe they should first fulfill their primary charter without destroying the environment
@Daniel Dunne: if we didn’t have some sort of competition, we’d already have the most expensive electricity in the world. just to give you an example. bin collection. in most areas there is only one company providing this service. from paying by lift for the black bin only, we have now come to paying an annual fee, plus lift, plus weight for black and green. so, no I don’t believe monopoly set up works in Ireland.
@Cal Mooney: naughten is an independent.
Just sayin’.
@Paul Furey: they are a brutal company to deal with, they’ve the highest cancellations of all providers in ireland
@ObsidianShine: do I have this right?? They are in the best position to do the work. They can do it for 1/3 of the price. The state would be subsidising an extension to their Network. They pulled out of the process. What am I missing.
@Paul Furey: I see you are in Dublin, it should work there ok…
@Paul Furey: Paul you were extremely lucky, I was charged €100 + vat to reconnect the cabels at the back of the modem.
@Cal Mooney: if this is what has been done to us in public sight can you imagine what the have done behind the scenes… Tut tut
@Andrew Dillon: you’re missing the fact that the state wouldn’t allow eir to extend their network.
In effect, a completely seperately built & managed network was required to be built for the NBP
It’s a complete farce.
While FG complains about having to find 3 Billion for their suspicious option chose, we have a cheaper option from others and FG is next year alone, giving €3.5 Billion away to a foreign EU army setup while our own Irish soldiers remain on low pay and are apply for social welfare further help.
tyhe point being that FG is again saying one thing regarding how they burn through taxpayers money – but then doing something else quietly behind the public back – which they were never allowed a vote on or later not had an ability to give their views on directly to FG.
FG is carrying on regardless – and as far as they are concerned, stuff the citizens of Ireland! They are going to stick to their self-invented agenda of looking after other big businesses and themselves.
@Unitedpeople:
can you provide any evidence that we are planning to give 3.5billion to fund an eu army?
That is more than our 2018 total eu contributions….
@Unitedpeople: utterly false and fake news. 3.5 billion? Close to 8% of our tax intake? If you are going to lie, try at least to use believable figures. Dope.
@Tim Pot: Christ almighty – do your homework. It’s already stated in government released documents that this is happening: http://unitedpeople.ie/the-eu-army/
@Paul Whitehead: Kop yuorself on and read the 2015 “White Paper” on Defence that IN PRINT exposes an increased cooperation between NATO, the EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) – along with harmonisation with Defence Forces equipment that NATO and an EU army will use. The financial numbers are there to be seen for yourself.
No – you couldn’t be arsed I suppose. It’s easier to make stupid insults against a party that can easy prove with links provided, what it and others have said – even The Phoenix magazine many times over the last two years who they too, provided further evidence.
@Unitedpeople:
1) your own website has no mention of 3.5billion being sent to the EU next year to fund an eu army
2) The financial numbers of 3.5 billion being sent to the eu from ireland next year to fund an eu army is not IN PRINT in the eu white paper on defence.
If I have missed it please do share….
You couldn’t make this $hit up! Squandering billions at the taxpayers expense! Someone’s on a backhand!
@Bull McCabe: In fairness, Eir pulled out if the tender. They are saying they can deliver their version id the broadband plan for 1 billion.
I’d hazard a guess that their proposal doesn’t involve a fixed price with the government picking up cost overruns.
1 billion can turn into 5 billion very easily
@Bull McCabe: Exactly. This is like kids fighting and Eir withdrew from the tender process in Jan 2018, then when the decision is made they come out, shrug their shoulders and claim they could have done for less than €1 billion.
Well why didn’t they? They had their opportunity and chose to walk away from it. As others have pointed out, including me, their existing broadband network is nothing to be proud of so coming out now to do a ‘nah, na, na, na, nah’ at others is suspicious. It smacks of corporate dirty tricks.
@Boyne Sharky: The tender process was flawed from the start. It was clear to Eir (unless they were mugs) who the eventual winner would be and that wasn’t them. It was Naughtens dinner companion. Shades of the the award of the State’s second mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone here. An utter shambles. The children’s hospital also. Wrong place. FG seem incompetent at best and corrupt at worst in trying to get the taxpayer value for money.
@Sean:
was it eir’s plan to take the 300,000 out in the expectation that at the minimum if they did not win the rest of the contract that whoever did would have to rent the poles anyway. Can’t believe they got away with that. No such thing as a free lunch comes to mind.
@Boyne Sharky: actually the eir rural fibre network to 330k homes is something to be proud of.
The logical approach would be to extend this network but the government requires a totally separate standalone network to be installed.
Its a bit like having a proposal to extend a train service to Dingle but instead of extending the line from Tralee – you are required to start in Dublin, build a new line to Tralee & extend that one to Dingle.
Bizarre, but these are the same people who decided to build a big national hospital where there is poor transport services and no homes available at prices affordable to the people we expect to work there
@Dow Dubrov: exactly, why did they pull out then in that case
Perhaps Eir could improve its customer service for its current products before expanding into other areas.
@Pavel Marianski: What are you on about? This is infrastructure being discussed, not customer service.
Once this is installed, you can sign up with any provider and they would make use of this infrastructure.
I dont think the infrastructure teams spend much time on the phone providing customer service.
FG are not fit to run a penny sweet shop.
Wouldn’t have eir in my home again bad after sales service hours waiting on the phone for someone to answer bad customer care service I know of someone who has go wait for two weeks to get their service in just not good enough in this day and age
@Liam Ward: They are all as bad as each other, weeks waiting for Virgin WiFi to anything too.
Issue is lack of synergy between admin and technical teams. Only way to get quick service is sign up for mobile broadband.
@Liam Ward: Eir would/could be just providing infrastructure, wholesale to companies.
We get what we vote. 100 years of FFG..
Yet another 2 BILLION waste from them..
Change your vote please Ireland…
@Willy: Just as soon as you point us all to an alternative
@Gavin Conran: plenty of alternatives Gavin, just try a little harder…
@Gavin Conran: Asking me who to vote for shows the reason we have FFG.
Makes one wanna just give up…
@Willy: sinn fein won’t be able to do it cheaper, even with diesel-powered counterfeit fibre.
@John Mulligan: Sinn Fein don’t do broadband , silly boy…
whatever party is in power, we have a history of cutting corners at the first hurdle and paying heavily for it later. 2 laned m50 springs to mind and the years of disruption later with upgrading it. put in proper fibre now so that all areas of the country are made as a viable place to work from in an increasingly online based workplace. it suddenly makes “isolated” locations worth living and working from .
@Connor Saváge: I dont think the problem is with the idea – the backlash is with the expense and conditions attached.
Footing more or less the entire cost, and we wont even own the infrastructure – hardly a smart move.
For the cost involved you would, at the very least, expect that the state would own the infrastructure.
Then of course with Eir coming out saying it could he done for a third of the cost of what we are being told…..
Makes one wonder.
Mary O’Rourke screwed over the country when she sold Telecom Eireann. Had she kept it in public ownership we would all have HiSpeed Broadband. Instead it was asset striped by AJ O’Reilly.
@Trixie: and every other owner since…having had dealings with them for many years their engineer finally admitted to me that their network is all patches upon patches…on the verge of collapse at any moment. They would love to have a brand new fiber line system at the public expense. It would still be oversold and brought to the verge of collapse by eir
Let’s get an enquiry going; 2 million contract to throw in any chancers direction
@TheFreeSpeechParty: billion not million!
@Bull McCabe: For an enquiry…deck, sign me up, happy to look into it or say I did anyway.
I have yet to find a mobile, broadband, or tv provider who even undertand the meaning of Customer Service!
All in it just for the money they rob from the users
@Rodney Williams: if you owned the company would you be in it to loss money ??
@Rodney Williams: Isnt the entire point to make money?
@Rodney Williams: yes, & at twice the cost in other states.
Spendthrift economics seems to be the policy of all our politicians & public service.
Throw our tax monies at each & every issue, increase the tax take every sneaky way possible, it is a slush fund to buy votes & keep armies of public servants in better paid & pensionable jobs than the rest.
What is needed is a radical shift from the current social & political order, which has increasing wealth accumulating for a minority, & exclusion from economic advancement,from higher education, from home ownership & family formation, from a universal standard of healthcare,childcare,& seniors care, for the rest.
This republic is failing most of its population,comparatively, & has fallen into the grip of laissez faire exploitative capitalism.
@Rodney Williams: i know – a bigger scandal was the report over the weekend is Ireland pays much more to access internet and public transport than almost any other country in the world – but the noise about rural broadband drowns out the bigger issue – we are ALL being ripped off monthly overpaying for internet access -RIP OFF
Eir we go again
The government of complete waste fg
Eir can’t even get their customer service team to answer phone calls inside one hour, so it’s just as well they’re not involved directly with the NBP.
5G…
@Michael Mc Grath: NO!
@Michael Mc Grath: I absolutely will ‘Never’ again go back to Eir, a nightmare. I had a problem that went on, and on and on for months. There was no sympathy what so ever, on several occasions I heard them laughing among themselves at my frustration. How glad I was when it came to the End of the Contract, then I kicked them into Touch.!!!
@Colette Kearns: why not?
@Michael Mc Grath: i am a very big 5G supporter – but in truth that will only form part of a solution ….you still actually need to build lots and lots of more cells in rural areas ( 5g is really at its best in concentrated city environment and putting a millions cars in a square mile on it ) plus the future proofing guys will all tell you that fibre cable is the fastest carrier ( speed of light ) and finally most 5G tech is actually only at beta stage (in dense city spaces like Singapore etc) -despite the marketing and you can be sure will need time and money to actually roll out effectively ( ironically the least populated /rural areas are not being targeted by 5G anywhere in the world yet ) – if you announced tomorrow we are doing the rural broadband plan by 5G it would be a soundbite but in reality you’d be saying – 10 years before its rolled out ( much like they said years ago about fibre for that matter ha ha ) – so unfortunately 5G is not a real practical alternative at the moment .
It’s stupid when you think about it back to poles and what’s going to happen storms falling branches guess when the internet goes down that’s right during the winter.on top of that every tree will have to be cut down and this country is banging on about the environment this is fooking stupid when we all know that wireless technology is the future what a waste of money.
@Robert Phelan: wrong
@Robert Phelan: wireless will never come close to fibre in terms of bandwidth capability, speed(especially latency) and reliability. Fibre rollout needs to be done nationwide. The fact they’re spending so much and it’s still overhead is what’s annoying me, it should be underground.
@Sean Murphy: wrong. It’s already faster
@David Fitzgerald: Care to elaborate??? An example maybe?
@Robert Phelan: if they could do it for 2bn less than enet why did they pull out of the tender?
Saps
@Sean Murphy: trust me if it was to go underground, 10bn wouldn’t cover the bill.
@Sean Murphy: i have wireless and it works perfectly
@Gavin Conran: unlikely he’s his making stuff up. bit like eir
The whole broadband debacle stinks. Is there anything FG does that on one hand can throw millions and billions around for pet projects and to hell with prudent fiscal management with public money. And on the other hand when ordinary low paid workers go looking for the government, or government agency, to honour an agreement, years old, or army personal look for pay restoration and it’s voted down. FG pleading good fiscal management and being prudent with public finances to justify their Scrooge refusal.
Anything that has, or has had the fingers of a certain person involved in it causes a huge stench.
@Dave Doyle: just remember that Denis naughten is an independent.
@John Mulligan: Do you think for one second he wasn’t doing what he was told to do?
It is ESAT all over again. Just give it away and make money for one man
Eir could not deliver the “massive” up to 4MB via my phone line! max 2mb on a very good day. No confidence in this company
Gov going for 3 billion broadband over 1 billion broadband tells me that there is probably a couple of billion unaccounted for in the state finances, the gov have squandered a couple of billion on things they don’t want the public to know about, so the useless gov thinks its better to say the broadband will cost a couple of billion more, than saying what they effed up on and really wasted the billions on.
And this headline makes the economic statement a farce, a piece of totally uncredible crap, because while countries like germany and the netherlands have run a budget surplus over the last few years, they have accumulated funds to absorb an economic downturn, we’ve ran a deficit, with brexit coming, we have nothing, nothing to absorb any downturn, just a bunch of clueless idiot overpaid amateur politicians picking 3 billion over 1 billion broadband, making themselves very rich while in leinster house, but have no real plans, no real strategy, and no funds to look after anybody else but themselves.
Why are EIR even bothering to say this, they withdrew from the tender and didn’t want to do it!
@John Meade: Yes when the terms were very different and the Gov said they were putting in a few hundred mill, now they are putting in a few billion, had that of been established when all the bidders were still in the running things would be very different.. Another mess by FG.
Stop govt NOW. Do not allow any more squander of taxpayers money.
if eir can build it for a third of the other bidder why did they pull out. all they had to do was stay in to win it
Yeah well go and vote when you have a chance people and stop complaining… 50 percent don’t vote and result is always the same FFG and they know it.
maybe the bidder had to deal with eir before? wouldn’t go near them myself. however redoing work that’s already been completed is absolute nonsense. if they don’t want eir to own the fibre, ask them to sell it then.
EIR CEO sounds a tad muddled!
Plc entity EIR cherry picks on likely viable 300k customers & upgraded fiber part of its infrastructure accordingly, then dropped out of NBP race to service remaining 540k unviable customers/locations. Smart move!
Then she sees scope, potential profitability of subsequent deal negotiated between serious, well-minted risk capital providers in conjunction with Gov, to service unviable 540k, under a 25 yr plan, &she cry’s foul!
A bit late in day attempting to make a 1st impression at 2nd attempt. EIRs shareholders would have sought her removal if Co took on earlier perceived risk.
Of course NBP winner is going to run its own Fibre through the 300k locations, on their journey to new customer base. Okay leasing poles, but fibre share is a bridge too far.
@Rory J Leonard: Exactly – Eir sucked the profit motive out of the project, then withdrew its bid – and now returns as the conquering hero to suggest how to “fix” this! The problem was always with Eir – and by rights, its networking assets should be subject to a CPO, not invitation to “bid” for a scarcity it generated in the first place.
Its a load of crap. they came in to carrigaline, one of corks largest commuting towns. ripped up roads and pavements and decided to only provide services to the new moderns homes. estates where there are mainly OAP’s cannot get more than 7-10mbps.
My home is stuck in the stone ages, internet to slow for most streaming services even eir wont provide their TV service. I’ve been on to td’s, national broadband plan, service providers and more. They are cherry picking which states to upgrade. We have now been officially told that it was not financially worth to upgrade our estate. And that there is no plans to provide fibre to our estates and many like ours. So much for the national broadband plan. These guys are gangsters
Why were Eir allowed to peel off the money making part of the deal in the first place? Why are they allowed to charge 1b in rental for poles that the state erected in the first place?
You need an independent provider and current broadband suppliers paying for the service. It should be state owned. More should be done to penalise poor broadband speeds.
Corrupt corporate governance
Two sides to every story but hopefully we will get a detailed response from the gov. Just a really messy process.
However, it must be considered what it has cost eir to provide the infrastructure for the 300,000 as that would have added to the total cost of any joint eir/gov bid.
Put the sharp mind of Simon Harris in charge, look how well he has done in his health portfolio….
Codswallop – I wouldn’t trust Eir as far as you could throw them, just try to sort out a complaint with them.
Are you kidding sure Eir cant run their customer service which is pathetic and useless let alone a broadband service. Cop on and stop giving Eir free publicity. Contact their Indian call centre for details. You must speak Irdu to understand them.
Eir can go do one.
Get Huawei in to do it and drive the Brits Mad … free takeaways for everyone !
Bit rich coming from the company who failed to provision these services to its last mile in the first place
Eir has realized that it’s current phone lines will be obsolete by the new fiber lines and was scrambling to get the government funding to replace their system. That’s what is going on. They pulled out of the tender process when it looked like the plan was dead… the minute it’s revived then they come back with a quote well below what it can be done for. Minister. Kick them to the kerb. They only want to upset your other bidder and will deliver nothing but empty promises and hot air…..
EIR’s proposed bid was multiples of 1bn.
Eir already have an appalling record of non communication! and failure to supply what they are contracted to
have your say